Russia’s Duma passes tough law on drunk-driving

The lower chamber of Russia's parliament passed a bill in the first reading toughening penalties for drunk-driving, establishing a four-times-higher fine for repeated offenses and raising the criminal sentence for fatal accidents.

The bill was introduced by the chairman State Duma Committee for
Security and Anti-Corruption measures Irina Yarovaya from the
United Russia party. The bill toughens responsibility for
repeatedly committing offenses such as driving drunk with or
without a driver’s license. According to the new bill, the fine
will be raised to 200 thousand rubles (about $6,500) for repeated
offenses. As an alternative to the fine, the deputies
suggest compulsory community work up to 480 hours, forced work up
to two years or detention up to six months.

According to the bill, a fine of 30 thousand roubles (about
$920) will be set for driving in a state of alcohol intoxication. A
fine of 10 thousand roubles (about $300) will be set for handing
over the wheel to a person under the influence of alcohol.

In each of the cases, the driver will be deprived of his license
for one and a half or two years. If these offenses are repeated,
the fine will be raised to 50 thousand roubles (about $1,630).

If the drunk driver was caught without a license or he was
deprived of his license before, he will be fined 30 thousand
roubles or charged with 15 days of administrative arrest if he is
unable to pay.

In addition, the criminal penalties will be toughened for
killing a person while driving drunk, according to the
bill. If the victim of the drunk driver dies, then the
offender faces imprisonment for a period of two to seven
years.

For the deaths of two or more people the charges are
raised and the offender faces from four to nine years in
jail.

Compared to the current set of laws in the Criminal Code,
the innovation of the bill is the establishment of the minimum time
of imprisonment. The bill also excludes the possibility of
penalizing the offender by means of community service in cases of
fatal accidents. In addition to that in all fatal cases the
driver’s license will be revoked for a period of 3
years.

According to Yarovaya, more than 80 percent of Russians think
that drunken drivers pose the greatest threat to their life and
health, says Interfax. She considers it wrong that
currently some of the drivers who were the cause of lethal
accidents received only two years’ probation, Interfax
reports.

But there is much criticism of the bill since the current
legislation says only people with 0 per mil of alcohol in their
blood are considered ‘sober’. This means people with naturally
occurring alcohol in their blood or those taking certain medicines
would be considered intoxicated.

The alcohol level at which a person is considered to be legally
impaired varies by country. For comparison Britain has the
permitted level of 0.8 per mil permitted and USA the same
number.

Criminal penalties for drunken driving can be toughened only if
there is a criterion for determining the level of the driver’s
intoxication, said First Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on
Constitutional Legislation and State Vyacheslav Lysakov, RIA
Novosti news agency reports.

Lysakov proposed an amendment according to which a man would be
recognized as drunk if the level of alcohol is greater than 0.2 per
mil in his blood, RIA Novosti reports. The amendment
was submitted after the bill passed its first
reading.

The State Duma has intensified its work on proposals to increase
penalties for drunk driving after seven people were killed, including several disabled
teens, when a driver ran his speeding car into a bus stop in the
Russian capital in September last year. The 30-year-old driver was
detained at the scene and later confessed he was in a state of
“alcoholic intoxication” at the time of the crash. Several hours
after his arrest, the driver was barely able to stand on his feet
but still tried to break free.